Hot Smartphones Drive Western Market
Posted by weinabeyondsoft on January 31, 2011
infoSync, 30 January 2011- We take a look at the current mobile market shakeup and how hot smartphones drive the Western market forward.
Nokia describes the mobile market as an environment that is intensely competitive and plagued by component shortages. The Finnish manufacturer saw a 2.4% decline in unit shipments in Q4 2010 year-over-year, despite smartphone introductions such as the Nokia N8 and Nokia C7. These models contributed to a 38% increase in smartphone shipments for the company year-over-year, but feature phone shipments took a significant hit.
Apple and ZTE, on the other hand, increased their year-over-year unit shipments by 86.2% and 76.8% respectively. IDC reports that ZTE is succeeding in its Chinese home market, steadily spreading to developing regions such as Africa and Latin America as well as making inroads in developed markets such as Western Europe, the U.S. and Japan.
While Apple and ZTE aren’t directly comparable, they do share one overall goal: to rule the 4G era. ZTE has been rapidly expanding in both the GSM and CDMA worlds in recent years, and naturally wants to become a key player in the new 4G LTE era. And as stated above, that’s going to happen on a global scale.
LG Electronics’ unit shipments declined 9.7% year-over-year in Q4 2010. IDC says an aging portfolio and lower prices within emerging markets left the company vulnerable to the competition. ZTE is clearly among the key companies that are pressuring LG and Nokia in the feature phone segment.
LG’s answer to increased competition in the feature phone market is to bet on smartphones for Western markets. We reviewed the Quantum (Windows Phone 7) and Optimus T (Android 2.2) late last year. Upcoming smartphones include the Revolution, one of Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE Android phones, as well as the NVIDIA Tegra 2-equipped Optimus 2X.
While Nokia and LG were forced to make cuts in overall unit shipments, there’s one big player that is still going strong: Samsung, of course, which saw a 17.3% increase in Q4 2010 unit shipments year-over-year.
Samsung is currently working on TouchWIZ 4 to run atop Android 2.2 and 2.3. The company will announce the Galaxy S2 during the Mobile World Congress next month, which will sport a dual-core processor and a Super AMOLED Plus display. The dual-core processor is rumored to be the NVIDIA Tegra 2.
IDC says that the continued success of the Galaxy S smartphones was driving the shipment volumes for Samsung last quarter. The company sold nearly 10 million units of those phones worldwide in 2010. The Verizon iPhone will soon challenge the Fascinate and Continuum, but Samsung has the Stealth V in the making for Verizon Wireless.
The Samsung phone that really shines, however, is the recently released Nexus S for T-Mobile (and rumored to spread to AT&T). It’s running stock Android 2.3, which combined with a Super AMOLED screen brings expectations for smartphones to a new level. If Samsung plays its cards right, Nokia should worry more about Samsung than Apple and ZTE.
The full-year numbers below reveals that RIM is also still going strong, and given the upcoming BlackBerry 6.1′s focus on third-party apps and improved Web browsing, in addition to its already well-known BlackBerry services, the Canadian manufacturer just adds to the fact that it is an intensely competitive mobile market indeed.
For more information visit http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/cell-phones/hot-smartphones-drive-western-market/11748.html.
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